IBM ramps up local virtual server services

Hardware vendor, IBM, has signalled its shift into Cloud services, with the local launch of virtual server services designed to host data for Australian enterprises.

Virtual machines running in the vendor’s tier three data centres would host the data.

The services are to be offered in three tier levels of bronze, silver and gold. Under the bronze tier, the customer would manage the operating system while under silver and gold, IBM would look after the operating system, patch management and backup service.

Customers would also receive a service-level agreement that guaranteed 99.95 per cent infrastructure uptime.

A fixed monthly cost per virtual machine, which can run Linux or Windows, will be offered. The virtual servers will run on VMware's vSphere virtualisation platform using IBM's System x servers and enterprise storage.

However, an IBM Australia spokeswoman said in a statement that pricing details were not available and she could not provide the locations of the tier three data centres.

She said 24/7 support would be offered from the company’s Ballarat, Victoria, service office. Other services included 24-hour monitoring, incident response and enterprise storage management.

IBM also planned to launch a virtual server services sandbox package later this year, where customers would receive self-service access to a capacity pool for use in development and testing.

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